Water Lilies as we known are fascinating pond plants, the botanical name of Water lilies is "Nymphaea", they usually grow in creek, water bodies with stagnant, not moving water, they are sometimes mixed with Lotuses, but Water lilies and Lotus are from two different family, they are not the same but they both can sometime be found in the same water body complementing each other. While the family tree of Lotus has just two type, "Nelumbo Lutea & Nelumbo Nucifera", the Yellow Lotus (Nelumbo Lutea) is native to North America & the Pink & White Lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera) mostly from Asia; however the family tree of Water Lilies has many different types of Sub-genus, many of the sub-genus we have never knew about or grown so today let's gather some basics of water lilies and the best would be to start with the Water Lily family tree
I have been always fascinated about Water Lilies, when growing up Water lilies here in my place they are used to be sold in colours, nobody understood anything about it and all we wanted was of different colours, as time passed and I learnt more I understood there are different water lilies and each of them behaves differently, it's not just the colour alone but the patter of leaves, flower, their blooming type, even their smell are unique, there are usually two categories in which water lilies blooms, one type blooms at night which we call as Nocturnal or Night Blooming Water Lilies and then there are others which blooms during the day which we call as day Blooming Water lilies, but its not the difference of Night and Day blooming alone, even in Night blooming we have water lilies from different Sub-Genus, which blooms at night and for the day blooming water lilies is the same, many different types of Sub-genus opens during the day and stays open until afternoon to early evening, some of them also remains open until late evening, most commonly as we may known or seen, Australian Waterlily as we call, some of them opens very early in the morning and stays open until late evening, some of my own hybrids were found open until 10 PM and there are some which may stay open for 24 hours and for 6-7 days, yes you hear me right, water lilies which can stay open all day and for 6-7 days, I have often noticed some water lilies stays open and sink down under water after been blooming for several days, that shows the flower do not want to close.
This topic is interesting but we need to begin it from the beginning so that we all can understand what I am talking about, how do we start to recognise water lilies and their different category and for this we need to understand the family tree of water lilies so we all can learn to recognize what we are growing in our pond, the differences between different water lilies, and most importantly this will help us remove the myth we may have, to remove the doubts and to have better understanding about their growing and handling.
